Undercover
by Velgamidragon
Summary: Oneshot. Set in episode 30. Siegrain is certainly not going to pass up the chance to see Erza performing on stage for the first time. He has to keep an eye on her at all times after all, so why not enjoy himself at her expense?


**Author's Note: Got lots of ideas for Fairy Tail. Don't think I'll ever get around to them all as a result. This is set during episode 30 when Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Erza put on that play in Onibas. I decided that it was very possible that since Yajima went and the Fairy Tail crew were sending flyers everywhere (their own words), one of said flyers would have made its way to the council and thus it would be possible that Siegrain would decide to see the play as well. As such, since this is before the Tower of Heaven arc, it was written to minimize certain spoilers for those who haven't gotten that far (namely my best friend who hasn't even started the series, but will probably read this anyway).**

**Disclaimer: Hiro Mashima is the owner of Fairy Tail. I'm just playing around with the characters and the universe that he's created, but this idea is mine.**

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><p>Undercover<p>

Siegrain really despised days like this. He had just finished having a private meeting with Ultear to discuss the next phase of the plan and he was now exhausted; that woman always wore him out. He always hated those type of days _because_ he was so mentally-drained afterwards and that was when he was at his weakest. He couldn't afford any slip-ups and even in his own room, he never felt safe enough to wind down. He was always on his guard. The only non-stressful thing that had happened this _week_ was Master Makarov's trial over the destruction caused by the clash between Phantom Lord and Fairy Tail. Unlike the other council members, Siegrain found their destructive antics quite enjoyable which also served to annoy the older members whenever he brought up such opinions.

Officially, it was because they made life interesting, and he was only 19 of course. He wasn't old enough (unlike over half the Council) for sedentary life to be normal for him and nor would he wish it. Privately, he enjoyed it because it was Fairy Tail's way of rebelling against the system and he had always been a supporter of fighting for one's freedom. But _personally_, he took a liking to Fairy Tail because it was the guild _she _had joined... _Jellal's_ precious Erza. Ah, but there would be time to think about Miss. Scarlet later, Siegrain was actually surprised Fairy Tail had been found innocent, for once. Of course, it was all on behalf of Yajima, a former guild member of Fairy Tail and one of Makarov's and Grandpa Rob's (as Jellal had so fondly called him once) friends. And speaking of the old-timer... There he was holding what appeared to be some type of flyer in his hands, and he kept glancing up at the notice board before him and then back down at the paper like he was trying to decide whether or not to put it up.

"Master Yajima," Siegrain called out to the old man with a pleasant smile on his face, "What a surprise seeing you outside of a council meeting like this."

"I could say the same of you. Especially since you and Ultear seem to be working together on quite a number of projects. Have you two become an item yet?"

Siegrain laughed lightly and raised his hands in protest, "Please, Master Yajima, you tease me far too much on the matter. Ultear's not my type, anyway. So what is it you have there?" he asked with genuine interest as he agilely transitioned away to the new topic.

Yajima's full attention was drawn back to the flyer and he frowned slightly. "I received this from Makarov. Apparently, a few of his children are performing a play in Onibas at the end of the week. I'm debating whether or not I should put this up on the bulletin board for the rest of the council to see."

Siegrain's interest was piqued. Members of Fairy Tail, huh? He wondered if there would be any names he was familiar with. "May I see it, Master?"

"I don't see why not," Yajima said with a slight shrug as he handed the flyer over to the young man.

He read it quietly and once, one of his eyebrows quirked upward, giving a look of vague interest before handing the flyer back to Yajima and giving his opinion. "I believe you should post it on the bulletin. If any of the other council members would like to go, then they have that option. It certainly won't hurt anyone," he added with a dry chuckle, wondering if Fairy Tail was going to destroy anything _this_ time around as well.

"Hm, you may be right. I thank you for your input."

Siegrain bowed his head once and continued walking onward, feeling a bit livelier than he had a few minutes ago. The play itself, titled "Frederick and Yanderica" or something, wasn't all that interesting; just a boring story of some princess being rescued from an evil wizard and his dragon by some prince. Talk about cliché. A much more interesting story would be if the princess went to save the prince only to find out that the prince and the evil wizard were the same person. Ah, and what made it more beautiful and chaotic was that the princess was very much in love with the prince that she looked up to. He wasn't sure where the dragon would fit into the story though... But no, his interest in the play lay, not in the content, but the actors: Erza Scarlet as the prince, Gray Fullbuster as the evil wizard, Natsu Dragneel as the dragon, and Lucy Heartfilia as the princess, the latter's name only being familiar to him thanks to the Phantom Lord incident. In a weird way, he wasn't surprised that Erza was the prince, but he was also a little disturbed. From what he could recall from what he'd been told, Erza hasn't really shown that much interest in the arts. How would she do? Curiosity was begging for an answer and he saw no harm in it. Watching a play might be fun, especially if _Fairy Tail_ members made up the entire cast and it would be a good way for him to relax. He made a mental note to add the event to his calender, both his official _and_ private ones.

()()()()()()()()()()

Siegrain had never once considered himself to be a vain man. Sure he had pride in his physical appearance, but that was only natural. Everyone should take pride in how they looked as it came part and parcel with their overall character, be they of the light or dark or some form of gray in between. Well... unless you were an adolescent just growing into adulthood, then you hated everything about yourself until you realized (or didn't) what an idiot you were when you were a teenager and resumed your normal personality and behaviors. That being said, Siegrain absolutely despised himself for going to such lengths to cover his identity for this. His bright blue hair was easily distinguished in a crowd, and though there were some that had also been born blue-haired, none of them had quite his shade of the color. Ah, but then there was his face. If you did indeed forget his blue hair, then you could never forget his face, not with the intricate red tattoo that spanned the right side of his face from his hairline to almost completely down his jaw. That one feature alone was all he needed to completely (physically) distinguish himself among the millions of people living in Fiore.

But for once in his life, he wanted- no, _needed_ to blend in to a crowd of commoners. He had pondered just _willing_ his hair to a different color and his tattoo to disappear from his face, but decided against it. Doing so would have required greater concentration on his part and if he wasn't paying attention, he would revert back to his normal-looking self and then what would have been the point? So here he was, standing before a mirror and manually-applying some sort of skin make-up onto his face to cover up the tattoo and his once blue-hair was now a deep obsidian black. It had been difficult to decide what color (other than his own) would match his skin tone and wardrobe choice and not make him look too horrendous. It irritated him slightly that, before he'd even had a chance to consider the matter, scarlet red was the first color his mind had decided. He had flatly turned down the suggestion as red hair just wouldn't have looked good on him, especially not that shade. Dark colors had always suited him best anyway. He carefully inspected the make-up on his face, making sure that he had thoroughly covered the tattoo and once satisfied with his work, he set everything down and released an irritable sigh. The stuff was resilient and uncomfortable, he didn't understand how women could stand to put this stuff on their faces every day, but now he was properly disguised.

With a smirk on his handsome face, Siegrain stood up and pulled his arms through the black jacket with gold trim around the sleeves that had been waiting on the back of the chair for him. It was a little detail, but he was glad that this particular jacket had a hood. He didn't expect anyone to suspect that he was Siegrain with the changes he'd made, but if Erza somehow spotted him in the audience from the stage, then she might recognize his hair style. Then there was also Councilman Yajima to consider. He was going for his own personal amusement and didn't want to be associated with Makarov's former guildmate or any other council members for this venture. Proud of his disguise, he lifted the hood over his head and teleported to one of the side streets in Onibas. Though magic was common enough, a person appearing from out of nowhere wasn't exactly a normal everyday occurrence, even for the other wizards of the world.

He expected the area around the theater to be a little busier than normal. He did _not_ expect to see an entire crowd and a long line was already starting to form! He gaped for only a moment before he took his place in line before it got even worse. He couldn't have had better timing because not five minutes later, a _huge_ line of people had formed behind him and Siegrain wouldn't have been too far off in guessing that the line stretched all the way to the Onibas train station. He waited patiently in line, handed over the correct number of jewels to the ticket master, and searched for Yajima in the quickly-filling theater. He was taking no chances with this. On a sudden whim, he looked up and to his delight, found the old man sitting in one of the balconies with several other acquaintances, one of which was his dear friend Makarov. Having noted their position, Siegrain chose an aisle seat almost directly underneath the balcony and waited for the rest of the theater to fill up. If he were to be completely frank, he had never once seen a play before in his life, though he'd heard of them, so he had no idea what kind of performance to expect or what was considered normal. Well, if they destroyed the building, he'd know for sure that _that_ wasn't normal for plays.

He didn't know how long he sat there waiting for the theater to fill up, but it felt like a long time before he heard this loud, buzzing sound and the theater lights dimmed out. There was a trill of a harp from behind the curtain and his heart gave a sudden jolt. Then the most beautiful, melodious voice he'd ever heard in his life sung out as the curtain rose and a spotlight was cast on the woman. Ah, now he understood why he was feeling so calm. That was Lyra, one of Lucy Heartfilia's spirits of the Celestial World. It was in her power to change emotions with the music of her harp. Cute trick Lucy, but not enough to fool him. Now he could focus more on the lyrics and less on the rapid pounding of his heart.

"_There lived a prince, alone... His heart cried out. Its echo returned... It belonged to a fair princess in a distant land..."_

Siegrain knew it was just the spirit's power over him that was making him feel like this, but this deep longing he felt was so sad and so strong that it might as well have belonged to him. Another spotlight was turned on and there she was, the beautiful scarlet-haired Queen of the Fairies, Erza _Scarlet_. She looked absolutely radiant, even wearing men's clothing. He allowed himself a slight snicker as he gazed at her. She was certainly the most attractive 'man' he'd ever seen, but apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so to judge from the whispers he heard running through the audience. Erza threw her arm out in front of her... and froze up... Quite literally. Her legs were shaking and no sound left her lips. Siegrain guessed that wasn't supposed to happen, but he wasn't sure what was wrong. He didn't even realize how uncharacteristically concerned he felt for her. Had she been struck by some spell to keep her from moving properly? Why wasn't anyone helping her?

He was severely tempted into standing up and going up there himself when the elderly pink-haired woman next to him muttered, "Ah, looks like she has a case of stage-fright. Poor girl."

Deciding that this woman knew more about what was going on then he did, he leaned a little closer to her and whispered, "Pardon me, madame, but what is 'stage-fright' exactly? This is the first play I've ever been to," he added by way of an explanation when the woman looked at him a little odd.

She didn't stop staring at him. "You... what's your name?"

Siegrain looked taken aback by the question and quickly replied, "Simon." The first name that he thought of off the top of his head that wasn't his own. Simon wasn't exactly an unusual name, and even if it was, it wasn't like anyone of the outside realm knew of Simon of the Tower.

The woman frowned and shook her head, muttering, "Must be my imagination. I'm surprised you even noticed me." To be honest, he _hadn't_ noticed her until she'd spoken about Erza's performance. "Anyways, stage-fright is a theater word for what happens when an actor gets on stage before an audience and freezes up like this. They become so afraid and self-conscious of themselves with so many eyes staring intently at them that they just lose it. Some have it worse than others like poor Erza, here. I don't think she's ever performed for a crowd this big before."

"_She's never performed before a crowd at all,"_ Siegrain thought irritably at the woman as he resettled himself in his seat to watch the disaster of a play unfold, for what else could it be?

Siegrain had never seen Erza so terrified, not like this at any rate. Sure, she had panicked the two times he had met her face-to-face, but nothing like this. Her entire body was shaking and she was stuttering terribly, like she had forgotten who she was supposed to be and what she was doing.

"I wield the power... because I have ten swords!" Erza declared suddenly and a magic circle appeared before her along with a collection of different pointed objects, a plunger, and a broom.

Not exactly ten _swords_, but close enough for her intended purposes and he knew exactly what was going to happen seconds before it did. The ten 'swords' flew out from the circle into the audience, one of them straight towards him and he blocked the attack just in time with some small magic of his own, not wanting to draw any attention to himself.

"Are you alright, madame?" Siegrain asked the woman next to him once he was no longer in danger of being skewered.

She nodded once and asked, "You're a wizard?"

"Not officially. I've never been in a guild and frankly, I don't see too much interest in it," Siegrain replied, and it was true. The Magic Council didn't count as a guild.

Ignoring the woman for the time being, he frowned in concern as he stared at Erza. He understood why her magic had reacted like that. She was freaking out and it was trying to protect her by attacking that which was frightening her. He found it slightly ironic that one of the actual swords just _happened_ to be flying in his direction. And then Lucy was suddenly dropped down from the sky... Or wait, was it supposed to be Princess Yanderica? But really? It was going to be that easy?

"Oh my beloved Prince Frederick, please save me!" Lucy- er, Yanderica begged pitifully. How did she even know the prince's name? They had literally just met, that was the entire point. "I'm held in the terrible clutches of that fiendish brute Seinheart!"

Nooo, she was held in the terrible clutches of rope, a pulley, and... whatever the rope was tied to. He felt a little miffed that the villain's name was so close to his own. They weren't implying anything were they?

"I am the great Julius!" Gray suddenly announced as he came from the other side of the stage, "If you want to save the princess, then you'll have to cross blades with me!"

He was sparkling as much as Erza had earlier. Who did he think he was? Villains didn't sparkle like the protagonists. It just ruined the image and contrast. But seriously, who the hell was he supposed to be? Did Seinheart just not feel like showing up so sent his sparkling, wimpy sidekick Julius to do his dirty work for him? … Actually, that didn't sound like a bad idea, but in all honesty, he had no idea what was going on, a thought shared by a great many of the audience members apart from himself. And geez! Why did this guy's name have to be so similar to Jellal's! They _had_ to be implying something now!

"They're improvising," the elderly woman stated and Siegrain turned to her, "Erza's not following the original storyline so they're doing their best to compensate and because the changes are so drastic, they're not keeping tabs on what the others are saying so the consistency is lacking. With amateur performances like this, it's best to simply just go along with it and let your imagination run with it. It's more fun that way."

Let his imagination run with it, huh? It sounded like good advice to him. That was probably the only way this play was going to make any sense to him anyways. But now Erza's face was turning blue... that couldn't be good... There was suddenly a magic circle behind Lucy's back followed by a huge puff of smoke that filled the entire stage and Siegrain didn't think it had anything to do with special effects. That is, unless special effects counted as suddenly summoning walking, magical clocks and magically putting a genderbent prince inside them.

"'We will fight-duel!' the prince says timidly," the giant clockwork said and Siegrain sweatdropped.

"Oh how good of you to come Great Clock," Lucy said gratefully, "The brave prince is in urgent need of a moment's rest."

Didn't the clock just say that the prince was timid a couple seconds ago? And more like in urgent need of a strong shot of vodka, but he very much doubted that there was any here and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to get the prince intoxicated. But apparently magical clocks were what Erza needed for she finally managed to get back on her feet and talk normally. Now he had to wonder what would happen next though now that Erza was conscious enough to be able to help with the improvising.

"Meet your doom! My sword of ice!" Gray called out dramatically as he made said ice sword.

It was a nice bit of magic, but rather pathetic-looking in performance. Well, the sword _was_ made of ice; he supposed there was only so much flashiness you could use to make a prop weapon.

"Ah, very well," Erza said a bit uncertainly. She was better than earlier, but still not in optimum condition, "Then I shall attack you with... with my Ten Swords!" she declared as this time, a ring of ten _actual_ swords appeared around her and zoomed straight at Gray, landing just before his feet.

It was all Siegrain could do not to burst out in a fit of laughter at the look of pure terror on the Ice Mage's face as he scampered away as fast as he could like his life depended on it. So much for the great evil-wizard-replacement, Julius. Nobody would miss him. If it were Jellal in his place, he would have already dodged and countered. Now Lucy was talking again, expressing her gratitude for being saved (so easily, he might add) and Erza was kneeling down before her, extending her hand. He vaguely wondered what she was going to do.

"Lady Yanderica, let's get married and have many children," Erza said boldly and Siegrain's jaw dropped. What? Did that really just happen? "Like... 33!"

Siegrain completely deadpanned at that point. 33, Erza? Really? As a minimum, a woman would be pregnant for nearly 25 years of her life if she had the babies back-to-back. There certainly was a lot of chatter in the audience over the nonsense that the Fairy Tail members were creating with this play and also Erza's ridiculous number of children.

"The calm before the storm shall endeth noweth!" Gray suddenly (randomly) declared as he walked back onto the stage.

Oh, look who returned. Julius, the replacement villain. He had some guts to come back and face Erza after he was sent retreating without putting up a fight. Did he forget her Ten Swords attack so quickly?

"Death awaits thou! Now come forth and char him, my dragon!" Gray said loudly with a dramatic sweep of his hand.

He guessed that meant Natsu would be coming on soon. The set trembled and Siegrain thought the clock spirit was smart for disappearing when he did. Natsu as a dragon... this could get ugly. Sure enough, Natsu appeared, being held up by... something small and blue with white wings, and he was breathing fire all over the place! Wasn't that some kind of health hazard!

"Let's vanquish this beast!" Gray suggested after giving Natsu a few moments worth of fire-breathing action. Wait, what?

"Yes! We shall slay it!" Erza agreed whole-heartedly.

"_Erza, did you just forget that Julius is the villain and that he summoned the darned thing to kill you?"_ Siegrain thought with an amused smile on his face.

"_I_ can take care of the dragon!" Lucy said authoritatively, "You two get to safety!"

Well, that was new. Was she trying to have the main role in the story or something? He thought the princess role was just supposed to be eye-candy or something.

"Thanks, we owe you one!" Erza called back as she... ran off the stage with Gray! Seriously! ?

Erza Scarlet running from a battle (even if it was fake)! He never would have believed it if he hadn't seen it for himself. And he didn't quite understand it, but he felt this... white-hot fire raging within the pit of his stomach when he saw Erza run off with Gray and didn't even realize that his eyes had narrowed ever so slightly. He didn't have a chance to explore the emotion any further than that because the play was moving on without him and had taken a drastic turn of events. Whatever was holding Natsu up suddenly broke and he fell, crashing down onto the stage below, raising up a huge dust cloud. Siegrain smelled something burning even before the dust had lifted and once it was kind enough to disperse a little, he could see the little flame heading towards the left side of the stage and Lucy was screaming for Gray to put out the fire. He supposed that meant it was Lucy's dress that was burning. He didn't see any ice magic at work, but he did see Erza leap high into the air from off-stage, sword in hand, and drop down to where Lucy was... and she cut Lucy's dress to pieces.

Lucy was in frantic hysterics and for once, the audience's reaction to this newest bit confused him even more than the play's mismatched contents. A quick look around told him that pretty much every single male in the place was drooling shamelessly over Lucy and the bits of flesh they could see even as Erza removed her green cloak to wrap Lucy in it. This reaction, on behalf of the male population, to seeing a woman's naked body was something he had _never_ understood. And considering he was already nineteen, he probably never would. Jellal had seen the others naked multiple times before, even Erza and Millianna and at that age, they didn't have anything that he didn't. Granted, eight years later, their chests had grown outward, but that was it. It certainly wasn't anything to get all excited about.

"Princess, are you alright?" Erza asked Lucy once the other girl was clothed again.

"How'd _you_ end up getting the lead in this play? !" Lucy shouted, completely ignoring the question.

Wait... so the princess role was supposed to be the lead? Siegrain never would have guessed. Then Natsu suddenly released a torrent of fire into the audience and the entire play went downhill from there. The fire alarms were set off and Gray was interrupted from stopping Natsu by the appearance of a large, talking cow, one of Lucy's celestial spirits. Lucy was shouting heatedly at him for coming on stage while Gray and Natsu started brawling, and a darkly-dressed winged cat was nomming on some meat with Erza just standing in the middle of the stage like some kind of frozen statue, which didn't last too long after she was hit in the head with a rock and joined the battle. And all the while, Siegrain smiled, not an arrogant smirk, but a real, happy smile. Even his eyes lit with joy as he watched the insanity unfold before him and he wanted to laugh from the shear simple fun of it all! How long had it been since he'd smiled like this? Too long, he knew.

He was still smiling even as the entire building collapsed around them (though he did make sure none of the pieces hit himself or the elderly woman next to him) and even let himself cheer along with the rest of the crowd who, by the sound of it, had enjoyed it as much as he had. Siegrain had never been to a play and they had probably done it all wrong, but he had thoroughly enjoyed himself. It was almost enough to make him forget that the Tower of Heaven was enduring the final touches in construction before completion. That he would be seeing Erza very soon face-to-face once again. That soon his life-long dream would finally be complete. It was almost enough... But alas, these dark thoughts of reality were always hovering at the back of his mind and it was enough to sober him. It was such a pity that Erza wouldn't be able to perform for too much longer. It had been quite a treat watching her freak out on the stage. She had been so adorable. Perhaps he should send her a note, some kind of message, that he had seen her play. Or maybe somebody _else_ should.. Yes, he liked the idea of that. He would do so as soon as he returned to Era. As Siegrain left what remained of the theater, he never noticed that his temporary companion, the normally-solitary Porylusica, had already left and returned to her forest home.

()()()()()()()

"Wow, I never thought that we'd actually get fan-mail from doing this!" Lucy esclaimed in amazement when she saw all the envelopes piled at the bar next to the ever-smiling Mirajane. They had finally gotten back from their week-long acting stint and Lucy was ready to be done with it, but this huge response nearly made her forget the torture they had endured from putting on a total of twenty-one shows. Nearly.

"Yup!" the white-haired young woman said brightly, "And I even took the liberty of sorting everything out for you guys with the most recent being on top. You can decide how you want to respond, if you do, on your own. Oh, and you don't need to worry about pranks or bombs or anything like that. Everything was screened prematurely."

"Incredible... But I have no idea how I'm gonna carry all of this," Lucy complained.

"It sure is quite a bit," Erza said thoughtfully as she stared at her own large pile before, "Requip!" And now she was wearing an office worker's outfit, complete with spectacles and a large professional-looking briefcase.

Lucy could only watch dumbfounded as the scarlet-haired woman somehow managed to put every single letter into that briefcase and yet have it still look the same size as when she started. "C-Can I borrow that too?" she asked, her voice a little high-pitched.

"Of course," Erza said with a nod, "I'll just carry them with mine and then drop them off at your place. Is that alright?"

"Oh yes, thank you," the celestial spirit wizard said with a slight bob of her head, "What about Natsu and Gray? Do they need-?"

"Those two will be able to handle their mail on their own," Erza interrupted and then smiled knowingly over Lucy's shoulder, "See, they're already handling the problem just fine."

Lucy turned around and gaped as she watched Natsu _grilling_ the letters on a spit with a maniacal gleam in his eye while drooling and Gray had frozen all his letters into a giant ice cube and was already carrying it out of the guild.

"You guys are insane...!" Lucy whispered in hysteria.

"And when are they not?" Mirajane asked with a small laugh.

()()()()()()

Dropping off her mail and Lucy's mail hadn't taken too long, but it was still well-past nightfall when Erza finally had the chance to retire for the night and sort through them herself to determine which ones she would bother with. She proceeded up the path towards Fairy Hills with an envelope clutched in her hand with nothing but her name scrawled across the front. Mirajane had given it to her right before she left for the night, giving her a warning that she hadn't been able to scry through its contents or even open it to see what it contained. Someone had magically enchanted the envelope to only open for the one it was addressed to. Quite powerful magic. She would definitely be careful when opening this one. After much internal debating, Erza had decided against opening the letter in her room on the possibility that any dangerous contents within may cause more destruction and harm to her friends within than if they were released outside.

Erza sat by the old tree at the back of the dorms and tore at the folds of the envelope, feeling the magic touching her own magic aura to determine if she was truly the correct recipient. Feeling no negative consequences or hindrance as a result of her actions, she proceeded onward, bracing herself for the worst as she tore the last of the envelope away... Only to find a single piece of paper flutter harmlessly to the ground. She felt a little ridiculous. She had gotten all worked up over a simple little letter. Yet, she _still_ did not let her guard drop. There had to be _some_ reason why a letter had been given such heavy magical protection by its writer. Erza stooped down to pick up the letter and as she read its contents, her breath hitched in her throat and she suddenly understood _exactly_ why it had been so heavily-protected. It was from _him_ for her eyes alone.

_Greetings, my dear Erza,_

_I saw your debut performance as an actress and I must say I'm quite impressed. I had no idea you were so into the arts. You certainly didn't show too much inclination of that while you were here. Nonetheless, I truly enjoyed it, especially watching you. I haven't smiled like this in the eight years that have passed since you left me, but not for much longer now. Your prince awaits you in the tower._

_-JF_

It was only initialed 'JF', but there was only one person in the entire world who could have written this. Only one. "Jellal..." she breathed.

She nearly shrieked aloud when the letter suddenly caught fire and she dropped it even as the fire consumed it and turned it into ash within seconds. Magic to destroy any physical evidence activated by a codeword. It was a little frightening that he had known she would say his name after reading the letter. Was she really so predictable? She preferred not to think about it. The letter was gone, but the words were still burned into her mind as clear as day. How had he been there? With his hair and his face, he wasn't exactly inconspicuous. Surely, she would have been able to pick him out in the crowd if he had been watching her! Right? Or even if she hadn't noticed him, then wouldn't she have been able to sense his aura? She who knew him best? He couldn't have been there. He just couldn't have been and yet the written words continued to haunt her. Could he have been spying on her through some other means that didn't involve his actual presence needing to be present? Could he be watching her even now? Erza Scarlet didn't even attempt to sort through the rest of her mail that night.

()()()()()()

In the throne room of the nearly-finished Tower of Heaven, Jellal sighed with content as he drummed his fingers against the lacrima crystal in the center of the room. Life sure was interesting living through Siegrain's eyes. It irked him slightly that Siegrain was able to watch her far more attentively than _he_ could simply because of circumstance, but that would all end very soon. Erza will return to him and then Siegrain would get his desired twist to the story. The princess will ascend to the highest room of the tower to 'save' her prince, misguided though she may be; and he, in turn, would return Zeref to flesh through her own body, allowing her to see and be a part of the true freedom he had so often envisioned for themselves.

* * *

><p><em>So yeah, I kinda randomly decided to throw Porylusica in here (it was originally going to be an unimportant OC). Not sure why she would be attending a play in Onibas of all places when she's a hermit that hates people, but yeah. I guess I just threw her in there because I could (and I totally believe that she can make people unaware of her presence in a place if she so chooses). <em>


End file.
